Randy Schubring wins Rochester council president race

ROCHESTER — Randy Schubring will fill the Rochester City Council president’s seat next year.

With unofficial results reported early Wednesday morning, 51.9% of the approximately 52,000 votes counted called for Schubring to replace Council President Brooke Carlson, who decided not to seek a second term.

His opponent, Ward 5 council member Shaun Palmer, had received 48.1% of the vote.

Mary Blair-Hoeft, the county’s director of Property Records & Licensing, said the first 16,000 votes from Olmsted County precincts started uploading to the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office at approximately 10 p.m., but the file transfer was slow, taking more than two hours to be completed.

She said it was unclear why the initial upload took so long, but later transfers were more efficient.

By 12:30 a.m., election staff were finalizing a review of the final five precincts.

The incomplete results point toward the Rochester council seeing three other new faces in 2025.

Contributed

In Ward 2, which stretches west of downtown Rochester, Nick Miller received 52.9% of 9,175 votes counted.

His opponent, Tripp Welch, received 46.2% of the votes cast.

The two candidates seek to replace council member Mark Bransford, who opted not to seek a second term.

In Ward 4, which stretches east and south from the city’s downtown core, Andy Friederichs was successful in his challenge of incumbent council member Kelly Rae Kirkpatrick.

With all the ward’s precincts reporting, Friederichs received 51.5% of the approximately 6,400 votes counted.

Kirkpatrick received 48.5% of the votes.

Contributed

In Ward 6, which sits on the northern center section of the city, Dan Doering was successful in the race to replace council member Molly Dennis, who did not receive enough votes in the August primary to earn a spot on Tuesday’s ballot.

Doering received 53.8% of the approximately 7,100 votes cast in the ward, while his opponent, Mark Schleusner, received 46.2%.

Contributed